Falling Through the Crack Between Worlds
by Irhaboggles
Summary: After Non Nocere fails, Lena finds herself literally slipping through the cracks, leaving behind National City for a land she thought only existed in stories: Oz. There, she meets the one named Elphaba Thropp, who reminds her that people are always stronger together. But she also warns Lena that she could one day lose everything. Now Lena can only wonder just what that means...


Although Lena did not know it, every single day brought her world and the countless others that filled their multiverse closer and closer to an apocalyptic annihilation. The tremors were small at first, coming only in brief hallucinations as the worlds began to collide and collapse, and Lena experienced one of them on the night that Supergirl had successfully put an end to Non Nocere. While the Luthor had been sitting alone on her couch, staring bitterly and longingly at a photo of herself and the Girl of Steel back when they still had been friends, her vision suddenly grew hazy. She felt as though she was looking at a window to another world, peering through a ripple in the fabric of space-time that allowed her to peer into a place that otherwise would not exist.

At first, the window really did only look like a crack or a cut, a thin ripple, but the longer and longer the vision lasted, the larger and larger that one little ripple became until it was all-encompassing, and it swallowed Lena whole. She was falling through the cracks between worlds… Suddenly, she was no longer sitting on her soft couch in her home, but rather, she was sitting on the cold, stony floor of what looked like a castle.

"I have a feeling I'm not in National City anymore," the Luthor mumbled as she got unsteadily to her feet, eyeing her surroundings warily. For a moment, she saw and heard nothing, but then a few seconds later, she thought she heard the fluttering of very large wings. She turned around slowly and then nearly shrieked when she caught sight of a large, furry, animalistic creature flying towards her from the other end of the hallway. The Luthor ducked as the creature flew by, it seeming not to see her. She stared after it in disgusted and frightened fascination before suddenly feeling compelled to follow it. Obeying that instinct, she ran after the sound of beating wings…

Several minutes later, Lena found herself at the top of a very tall and winding staircase. Panting heavily, she leaned against a nearby doorway before being startled back to life once again by a sharp and demanding voice.

"Who are you!? What are you doing here?! Who let you in!?" the voice snapped and Lena's head jerked up at once. She gave another silent cry when she caught sight of the person who had called out to her. It was a woman with fluorescent green skin. What?!

"Well? Who are you? Speak!" the green woman snarled, voice gravelly and fierce. For a second longer, Lena could only stare at her in stunned silence, but after that second had passed, she managed to compose herself long enough for an introduction.

"I am Lena Luthor, and to be quite honest, I have no idea how I got here. Where even is here?" and what followed was a very interesting exchange.

In time, Lena came to know that the green-skinned woman was a witch named Elphaba Thropp, and they were both presently within the Vinkus castle called Kiamo Ko, which was located in the country of Oz. Elphaba was here because she had nowhere else to go.

"Oz?" Lena gasped softly. At first, she hadn't wanted to believe it, that a place in a fairytale could be real, but after seeing the flying monkeys (one of which had been the large creature to go flying over her head earlier on) and the flying broom and all of the potions and other spells, Lena was forced to believe, even though it seemed impossible. So this was the Wicked Witch of the West… Somehow, she did not seem as violent or cruel as the old book and movie showed… And in time, Lena would come to see that she had quite a lot in common with this enigmatic character, for better or worse, because as she told her story, Elphaba's guarded expression changed and Lena almost thought she could see her own reflection in it.

Both Lena and Elphaba had had troubled upbringings, to say the least. Although Lena grew up will all the money in the world while Elphaba was dirt poor, everything else about them was pretty Oz-darn similar. They both had neglectful, abusive parents and equally troubled and manipulative siblings. Elphaba's father had been a religious zealot and her mother was a drug addict. Lena's father had been an alcoholic and her mother was an egomaniac who was never satisfied with anything or anyone, including her own kids, especially Lena. Elphaba could relate to being an unfavorite. Although, admittedly, in the rare times Elphaba's mother managed to be sober, she did seem to favor Elphaba. But then she died. Just as Lena's birthmother had. And just as Lena did, Elphaba also blamed herself for her mother's death and mourned it bitterly.

And as for siblings, while Elphaba had two and Lena only one, both of them were all too familiar to abusive siblings. Lex sounded far worse than Nessarose or Shell, but both Elphaba and Lena had been used by their siblings, taken advantage of and guilted day in and day out. While Lena constantly felt like she had to live up to the "Golden Boy", Elphaba had been Nessa's caretaker for as long as Nessa had been alive.

And again, with Nessa, even though she sounded far better than Lex, she seemed to have a similar mean streak and high sense of apathy to anything that wasn't her. She sounded bossy, bratty, selfish and "holier than thou", and all of those words could describe Lex too. Heck, both Nessa and Lex had even taken over the family business (though in Nessa's case, it was more of an honorary title than a business, per se) and had then tried to take over a government with both even succeeding before dying and being overthrown. The only difference was that Lex had met his end at the hand of his sister. Nessa's had come from more… unusual causes. Lena knew that this strange little girl Elphaba was referring to was the one the stories called Dorothy Gale, but she held her tongue, sensing that Elphaba would not want to talk about the little farm girl from Kansas. And Lena got an even deeper sense that it would be in her best interest not to try to change Elphaba's story, even if she already knew how it would end…

But again going back to the sibling parallels, Nessa and Elphaba's relationship sounded almost as unhealthy as Lex and Lena's. And Nessa seemed to have the same eerily stubborn determination that Lex did, stopping at nothing to achieve an end goal. Neither of them ever took "no" for an answer. Ever. And it also sounded like, along with being manipulative and almost murderous, Nessa was also quite spoiled, whiny, greedy and needy, constantly having someone do something for her and never feeling like she had enough. Though Lex liked to be a lone wolf, he had plenty of minions in his day and there was nothing he loved more than the adoration of others. He was just as greedy in that aspect. And he did it all while being blindly convinced that he would be their Earth's savior, which seemed to be Nessa's beliefs as well. But that god-complex was slightly oppositional between Nessa and Lex because while some of Nessa's belief stemmed from her being a religious zealot, Lex was just an egomaniac. Religion had nothing to do with it for him. He was an atheist. All the Luthors were. (Which was another thing Elphaba and Lena had in common).

Then on a more personal level, both Lena and Elphaba were "children of both worlds", so to speak. In the past, Lena had believed that she was 0% Luthor, adopted at age four after her mother died, and she had never known her father. But many years later, Lillian finally told Lena the truth. She was indeed a Luthor, her father being the Luthor patriarch, Lionel. She had been the result of an affair, and at first, Lena was supposed to stay out of the Luthor family, raised back in Ireland with her birthmother. But after that birthmother died, Lionel came back for Lena and brought her to America and to the Luthors. So in reality, Lena was 50% Luthor. Elphaba's story managed to be the same and opposite simultaneously.

The green witch was also a child of infidelity, and she, like Lena, had not found out for many, many years. But the difference was that Elphaba had considered the family she grew up with to _be _her birth family. In other words, she had considered herself 100% Thropp only to later find out she was only 50%, which was the reverse of what Lena had gone through. But like Lena, she had been less than pleased with the reveal. Like Lena, she had found out that she was related to one of the most despicable people in her country, a man whom she loathed and had spent her life trying to stop. The Wizard of Oz himself. (Lena had been surprised to hear that in this reality, the Wizard was a villain, but she supposed it made some sense because even in the old book and movie from her world, the Wizard had never been the most honest man…) But Lena was more drawn to the disgust with which Elphaba confessed this. Like Lena with Lex, Elphaba had tried to undo the Wizard's evil work nearly her entire life. Now she had the "pleasure" of hearing that she was actually a blood-relative of his. Lena could understand the disgust Elphaba was feeling.

Even more than that, though, was how Lena and Elphaba had both grown up: lonely, misunderstood geniuses with a strong desire to do good and make a name for themselves. Neither girl had any friends, really, and neither of them could stand their family, so their early years had been relatively lonely and empty, uneventful and unpleasant. There was plenty of teasing as well. Elphaba definitely got it worse, what with her green skin and all, but Lena was certainly not free from the torment either. As a rich kid and a Luthor, she had always been a pariah. She knew what it felt like to grow up alone, only books and nature and animals for company.

Both women had thrust themselves into academia to fill the holes in their lives and both of them were absolutely brilliant, some of the smartest and most determined minds of their time. And Elphaba had wanted to use all of her skill, knowledge and love for science and learning in order to improve her world and all who lived there. Lena had felt the same, hoping to one day create something great that would finally show the world that she was just as intelligent as her brother, and just as worthy of love and praise. She wanted to do something great, but not just for her own glory (though the idea of finally being adored was certainly appealing), she also wanted to do good, and improve her world just like Elphaba.

But once again, fate dealt both of the two misfits a cruel hand. Lex and the Wizard tore Lena and Elphaba away from their studies and forced them to devote the rest of their lives to undoing their evil works. It was a never-ending uphill battle, both Lena and Elphaba giving 100% in order to help repair damages only to constantly be misunderstood, mistrusted and vilified. Once again made pariahs, betrayed by every friend either of them had ever had, the two retreated to their respective sanctuaries. For Elphaba, this became Kiamo Ko, and for Lena, it became the lab under her family company: L-Corp. How amusing it was, that both women should find their safe haven once again in the world of science and academia. When the rest of the world had rejected them, crying out for their blood, Lena and Elphaba had found solace once again in a science lab, studying, experimenting and creating, still striving every day to be the heroes they had always dreamt they could be, still craving approval from the world.

But that was not without its drawbacks either. For one, it was lonely work. Elphaba had her monkeys and Lena had her A.I. (Hope), but neither of them had any real human contact. For another, it was also very emotionally-draining. All scientists needed to be able to shut off their emotions to some extent, but that didn't mean it wasn't painful, especially after long periods of time. Elphaba had grown so used to muting her emotions that now she struggled to wake them back up. Lena was in the same boat. Many times had she needed to quell her feelings in order to proceed in the name of science (the most painful example being with an old test subject of hers named Adam. He did not survive the experiment). And they were both still struggling with parental and sibling problems on top of trying to clear their own misunderstood and vilified names while also undoing the evil works of the men who had tried to bring ruin to their countries. And worst of all, neither of them were having much luck.

This led to another similarity. Both of them had spent _years_ working their scientific magic and both of them had a very long list of disasters and failures to their names, with very few successes. And for each of them, some of the more severe failures had ended in death, death of a boyfriend to be more precise. For Lena, that had been Jack Spheer. For Elphaba, that had been Fiyero Tigelaar. Both of the respective couples had been genuinely in love before time and tribulation drove them apart. They each managed a small reunion, but death was fast approaching. For Lena, she had been forced to put Jack out of his misery after his mind had been overtaken by nanobots, implanted by a treacherous secretary of his. Lena hadn't enjoyed ending Jack's life, but there was no other option. Not only was he being mind-controlled into attacking her and… _someone else_, whom Lena would get to later, but he was in pain too. Even though his blood was technically on her hands, it was a mercy more than anything.

And Elphaba had a very similar tale indeed. With Fiyero, not long after their long-awaited reunion, Fiyero had been taken away by the Wizard's guards to be tortured until he told them where Elphaba's hideout was, and what she was up to in her works against the Wizard. To spare him the pain of torture, Elphaba had tried using a spell that would render him unable to feel anything, but the spell backfired and wound up killing him. Just like with Lena and Jack, Fiyero's blood was technically on Elphaba's hands, but by then, it was a mercy more than anything, but that didn't stop Elphaba (and Lena) from feeling immensely guilty for ending the lives of the men they had loved so dearly, deeply and genuinely.

But the bad luck didn't just end with those two deaths. Instead, other inventions and works that Lena and Elphaba had worked on had also either culminated in failure, or they simply didn't work out.

"My most recent project… It didn't work," Lena muttered bitterly, unwilling to say too much just because she didn't want to dwell on it.

"I can understand," Elphaba cast a sour look at several large notebooks sitting at the back of her "lab". They were full of notes and records about where Animals came from and how animals could become them. As much as Elphaba had learned, she still could not find the link between humans, animals and Animals and that was the most vital piece of her mission. "So much time, effort, dedication and data, and still nothing to show for it!"

"Yeah," Lena agreed, a sour look flickering across her own expression as she thought about Non Nocere and Myriad. "Although I almost had it! It wasn't my fault that I failed. I had it done! But _someone _got in my way…" she growled. This was that _someone else_, whom Lena would get to later.

"Oh?" Elphaba turned her gaze back to the woman sitting beside her. They had both taken a seat on the bench on the far side of Elphaba's attic.

Now the pair came to another sore topic. It was perhaps the most serious and tension-filled of all. Their significant others.

"It was Supergirl," Lena admitted coldly.

"Supergirl?" Elphaba couldn't stop a cackle. What a stupid name!

"She used to be a friend of mine. A good friend. A _best _friend," Lena confessed and Elphaba's cackling silenced at once.

"Go on," she urged, voice suddenly sounding tight and strained. Lena caught onto the change at once, but chose not to ask. Not yet, at least.

"Her civilian name was Kara Danvers," Lena began. "And she was my best friend. My whole world. The light and love of my life. She was the first and only and truest friend that I had ever had. She was my nearest and dearest, and she was one of the only people to never ever doubt or judge me, especially just because of my family history…" for a second, Lena's face became dreamy and longing as she got lost in another time, before all the pain, rage, hatred and betrayal. A smile spread across her face for the first time in months as she thought again about those golden days with Kara. Elphaba, meanwhile, said nothing, motionless as she listened to Lena. She was barely even blinking or breathing, face devoid of any expression.

"But then I found out," Lena admitted, reality setting back in and bringing her away from the Land of What-Might-Have-Been. "I found out that Kara was Supergirl, and that I had been the only one in our circle of friends not to know. She kept that truth hidden from me, even though everyone else was allowed to know. She claimed that she trusted me, yet how can I believe her when she felt that she could not trust _me _well enough to let me in on the secret everyone else already knew? She betrayed me. She's a traitor. A liar. A coward. She is just as heartless and manipulative as my brother. She goes around telling everyone how wonderful everything is and how righteous she is and how she fights in and for the name of goodness, and yet she lies and hides, like a coward. _I _am not the wicked one here, she is!" Lena seethed.

Elphaba allowed her companion to stew for a minute more before finally interjecting, the first signs of sympathy and grief flickering across her emerald face after she had remained as flat and unreadable as a statue for the rest of Lena's story.

"I understand the pain and anger that you're feeling, but I implore you not to make the same mistakes I did. Do not let your feelings blind you," she said slowly, carefully. Normally, such a statement would've outraged Lena. For one, she hated whenever people tried to act like they could possibly know how it felt to betrayed, hurt and abused by every last person they knew. For another, restraining emotions had been the core of Non Nocere, so to hear someone tell her to keep herself in check really irritated her. But for some reason, Lena felt a kinship with the green witch and instead of getting angry, she only felt curious. Who had Elphaba lost that she could claim to know what Lena felt like? Well, Elphaba was about to explain.

Elphaba's Kara had been another bubbly blond with bright blue eyes and an even brighter, bubblier spirit. Her girl had been named Glinda. And although Elphaba and Glinda had loathed one another at first, the love they later shared rivaled Kara and Lena's.

"Like Kara, Glinda was one of the first and few to see me as something other than a freak," Elphaba said slowly, voice low and guarded. She was speaking with the exact same tone Lena had used. "Her innocence and ignorance, though frustrating, was also sweet and refreshing. She eventually managed to accept me for who I am and became one of my fiercest friends and defenders, not allowing anything or anyone to stand between us. Even if the rest of the world doubted or hated me, she never did," the green witch continued. Now she was entering the same dreamy state Lena had, also getting lost in another time before tribulation had torn two passionate lovers apart. "She was my favorite person. There was nothing I wouldn't do for her. We may not have always seen eye to eye, even after getting together, but we always managed to come back together again in the end… At least until we didn't…" then Elphaba's story took its dark turn and Lena felt her heart twist in her chest.

"There was no secret identity between us," the green witch said. "Instead, it was political belief. What tore us apart was the lengths to which we were willing to go in order to achieve our ends. Even though both of us agreed the Wizard wasn't exactly the best leader, I was willing to do much more than Glinda in order to overthrow him. While she stayed behind and eventually became one of his mindless puppets, I ran away and became an insurrectionist," she continued and Lena's eyes went wide. An insurrectionist! She was in the presence of someone who truly fought for good! Someone who feared nothing and always stood up for the right thing, even if it meant rising up against an entire country.

"But look what that means!" Elphaba hissed in frustration and hurt, as though reading Lena's mind and trying to dispel her romanticized visions about being a rebel on the run from a corrupt world. It was not as noble as the YA novels painted it to be. It was bitterly miserable and dark.

"I have lost so many loved ones, to death and betrayal both, and for what? What I have accomplished to make all the sacrifice worth it?" she demanded and Lena's awed expression fell back into despair, for she knew exactly what Elphaba meant. As both of them had noted earlier, despite their years at work, they had far more failures than successes, which only added to their bad reputation. Lena understood the frustration.

"And Glinda was one of them!" Elphaba continued, finally hopping to her feet in fury. "That wretched little traitor! Even after knowing what a monster the Wizard was, she still wound up working for him! I never expected her to become an extremist like myself, but even _she _should've been better than to sink to his level! Now we fight on opposite sides of a war, and I don't know if I will ever forgive her!"

By then, Elphaba's temper had risen and Lena finally got to see something other than silent indifference and apathy from her. Just like Lena herself, Elphaba was dynamic. She could be as silent and stony as a statue, or she could devolve into meltdown that was loud, messy, terrifying and violent. But Lena was not afraid. Not when it felt so much like looking into a mirror. It only made her sad. She thought back to her confrontation with Kara in the Fortress of Solitude and how it had caused her to break down just like Elphaba was now, ranting and raging as years of pain and emotional repression came spilling out on the one responsible for the most grievous betrayal of all. If this was how Elphaba acted just thinking about Glinda, what would the fallout look like if they ever had the same confrontation Lena had had with Kara? Lena had never, ever lost her composure or temper like that, not even with Lex.

But after a time, Elphaba simmered down. She was still seething, but it was no longer loud and messy. Instead, she looked frantic.

"I loathe that little idiot," she snarled. "Truly I do. But the pain she causes me just by being so far away is unspeakable and I know that if she were to come to me now, I would whisk her away forever. I would never let her go again, because I hate her and I can't stand not being with her!"

Now Lena finally looked truly uncomfortable, but only because Elphaba was now listing off all the things Lena, herself, had been thinking about Kara before she fell into this warped version of Oz. Lena, too, was still violently mad at Kara. She would never kill the Kryptonian, but she _had _fantasized punching the alien right smack in the face. But like Elphaba, even though Lena didn't know if she could ever forgive Kara for her lies, Lena wanted nothing more than to have her old friend back and whisk her away forever, run away with her until the entire world forgot them. Lena wanted to hold and be held by Kara again and never let go. But she had never said these things aloud, so to hear Elphaba hissing them now made her face something she wasn't really ready to face…

But then Elphaba came off of this high as well until she was returning to the neutral and quiet state she'd held before.

"I do not know your Kara, nor do I know the full or true extent to your intertwined stories," she told Lena with a stern and heavy voice. "I can, however, guess, based upon my own story and how similar it is to yours. Now I implore you to go back to her and talk to her. I don't know if you can ever forgive her, but until you _truly _try, you'll never know. And I ask you not to shut her out of your life as I did to my Kara, my Glinda. I can no longer reach her. But your Kara is still out there, within your grasp. Go find her, and talk to her. Clear the air…"

"And why should I try?" Lena hissed, anger returning to her face.

"Because one day, it might be too late. You might lose her forever and be unable to ever find or see her again. Anything could happen and every day that you wait is another day lost, another day the odds increase that things will get worse," said Elphaba, breathing heavily.

"But you haven't gone back to your Glinda, so how dare you ask me to go back to mine?!" Lena rose angrily to her feet to look Elphaba in the eye.

"Perhaps you think me a hypocrite, and I suppose you would be right," Elphaba sighed, the fire suddenly seeming to right out of her. "But my Glinda is unreachable. Yours is not. Not yet. But anything could happen. What if something did happen, to you or to her? What then?"

"Good question," Lena sneered sarcastically, crossing her arms. "What then?"

"Oh but you already know," Elphaba sighed again. "Even if you pretend not to, you know exactly what would happen if you were ever to lose her, for it would be the same thing that has already happened to me…"

Then an eerie, uncomfortable silence settled between the pair of broken, miserable, lonely women and, for once, Lena had no rebuttal.

"Don't go down my path," Elphaba implored, showing the first signs of gentleness that she had since Glinda left her. Or rather, since _she _had left _Glinda_. "It will only bring more darkness and pain," she said, eyes growing impossibly sad. But then they hardened again. "No more…" and Lena felt the fire finally leave her as well. She uncrossed her arms and then hung limply at her side. She hung her head as well, still feeling bitterly towards Kara, yet understanding that Elphaba was trying to get her to realize that if she continued down this path of grudges and revenge, she would indeed wind up exactly like Elphaba. She was already almost there after all. And it really wasn't fun. She could only imagine how awful it would be to be in Elphaba's shoes. Like the green witch had said, after all, Lena could still speak with her Glinda. Elphaba could not…

_One day, it might be too late. You might lose her forever. Anything could happen. What if something did happen, to you or to her? What then? _Yes indeed. What then? What was Elphaba without Glinda? Or Lena without Kara? "Stronger together" had become "Weaker apart"… But Lena had only just opened her mouth to muster up a reply when her vision began to grow hazy again and everything appeared fractured, like she was looking through more holes in the fabric of space-time, only this time, the holes were showing her apartment. Lena's eyes went wide and so did Elphaba's, but then before Elphaba could speak, she and her entire castle had suddenly vanished from Lena's view. They were replaced by a photo of Kara and Lena, the same one Lena had been holding before falling through the cracks between worlds. Now she was back, in the same position.

For a moment, Lena could do nothing but sit there and stare, but she wasn't even seeing the photo anymore. Instead, her mind was too full from her mysterious trip to the land of Oz, and the Wicked Witch of the West, and all of the painful messages she'd shared with Lena. But even more than the visions and echoes of Elphaba's face and voice were the unintentionally ominous things that she had said… _One day, it might be too late. You might lose her forever. Anything could happen. What if something did happen, to you or to her? What then?_

Lena was certain that Elphaba hadn't meant anything by it. Or at least, nothing more than what the words meant at face value, and yet, Lena still could not shake the feeling that there was something more to those words of warning than even what Elphaba might have known. Had those words really come from her? Or had they come from someone (or some_thing_) else entirely? Had something compelled Elphaba to say such threatening words? Had she been aware? Or had the entire thing actually been a fever-dream, a hallucination sent as a warning by some entity beyond her comprehension? If worlds really were tearing at their seams, allowing reality and fiction to blur and blend in between the cracks, who was to say what was or wasn't real anymore? Had Lena really visited Oz with some cosmic entity temporarily influencing some of Elphaba's words? Or had it all been one giant vision sent by some entity that was monitoring her as a warning… and a prophecy?

There was another level to those warning words, Lena was certain of it. Even if she couldn't put her finger on it. And she had the feeling that they were almost threats, implying a much greater danger looming on the horizon like a storm about to strike. No, not just a storm. A _crisis._

**AN: Welp. Here you go, elphiegranger2508! Hope this meets your expectations. Lena and Elphaba really are so similar, aren't they?**

**And for everyone else, yes I know this is a weird fic, but you can't deny that it was interesting! (Ok, yes you can. I don't mind. LOL). But hey, at least I managed to throw in a reference to this year's Crisis! IDK if I'm ready for it TBH. Less than a week before it begins! **


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